Italians celebrate contributions to tech innovation

Tomorrow marks the start of Italy Tech Week, an effort by the Italian Consulate to focus on the innovations of Italians both past and present — and their future in Silicon Valley.

Tuesday will be Italian Innovation Day, a series of talks and lectures at The Computer History Museum in Mountain View. Among the speakers will be Federico Faggin, who is credited as being one of the fathers of the integrated circuit and microprocessor, the technology that underpins almost every electronic device on the planet.

Also participating in Italy Tech Week is Mind The Bridge, a startup incubator focusing on entrepreneurs from abroad.

The events are part of an overall focus in 2013 to highlight Italian culture in America by the Italian government.
Mauro Battocchi, Italy’s Consul General in San Francisco, has faith that his home country will be the next start-up nation, citing a strong engineering pool and a boom of high-tech startups.

But he recognizes that ascent won’t happen by itself. “Silicon Valley is key to turn (Italian entrepreneurs) into global players,” he says.

Battocchi keeps a blog at www.SanFranciscoItaly.com which catalogues Italians impacting the Bay Area, with stories ranging from tech startups to the America Cup team.